Ohio House OKs $13.5B for K-12

Version would likely give more to local schools, but less than Kasich plan

Apr. 20, 2013

FILE - In this Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2012 file photo, Ohio Gov. John Kasich addresses the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. Kasich is expected to reveal his decision on whether to cover more low-income people now left out of the Medicaid program, in his state budget proposal. / AP

32Two, Indian Hill and Lakota, get double-digit increases. 17Eight would get the maximum 25 percent increase.

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The Ohio House passed a $61.5 billion budget Thursday that included $13.5 billion for K-12 education. The plan is a mixed bag for local school districts, according to an Ohio Department of Education analysis.

The House plan would likely result in schools in Hamilton, Butler, Warren and Clermont counties getting almost $30 million more than they’re getting this year, but $8.9 million less than they would have under an earlier education budget proposed by Gov. John Kasich. Overall, Ohio school districts would get $121 million less under the House plan than under Kasich’s proposal, according to ODE.

The debate isn’t over, though. The budget now goes to the Senate for more potential revisions. It must be passed by June 30.

According to the ODE analysis, six local districts would get less money than they do now, and 32 will get more. Under Kasich’s plan, no districts lost money, but only 17 got more. Many districts are still waiting to see how everything shakes out.

“Who knows what it’s going to look like in the Senate and the conference committee?” Cincinnati Public Schools spokeswoman Janet Walsh said. “But it certainly looks like the legislators are engaged.”

Her district would receive about $2 million more under the House plan than it would have under Kasich’s plan, according to the ODE analysis.

Districts need final numbers before finalizing their own budgets for the coming year. Many are facing deficits, and so the amount of money they get from the state could determine how deeply they cut programs or how many teachers they lay off.

Kasich’s original funding overhaul, proposed in February, would have funneled more money to districts with large populations of students who are poor, gifted, disabled or are not native English speakers. It set aside $300 million for innovation grants, boosted preschool funding, expanded kindergarten Educational Choice vouchers and gave charter schools money toward buying or maintaining their buildings.

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Kasich had proposed $6.2 billion and $6.4 billion in each year of the biennium to funnel through the formula. The House proposed $6.6 billion and $6.9 billion, respectively, according to Gongwer News Service.

Critics said the plans weren’t comparable because they used different perameters. For example, the House plan included transportation and career technical funding, whereas Kasich’s didn’t.

The ODE analysis, which it prepared at the request of another media outlet, removed transportation and career tech from both plans in efforts to make an apples-to-apples comparison.

The House budget proposal also:

• Removed controversial sex education language that would have prohibited the teaching of “gateway sexual activity” in schools and allowed parents to sue if their school didn’t comply.

• Removed language that mandated $10 million in technology funds be designated to developing electronic tests for the new Common Core curriculum standards.

Democrats were unsuccessful in eliminating language that allows for the creation of academic distress commissions in districts that deliberately tampered with student attendance data, according to Gongwer.

An investigation earlier this year by Ohio Auditor Dave Yost found that nine districts, including Cincinnati and Winton Woods, had manipulated student data. ⬛